


Ghost in the Machine

by NotASpaceAlien



Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Gen, Post-Apocalypse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-05
Updated: 2021-01-05
Packaged: 2021-03-15 08:02:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,418
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28560261
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NotASpaceAlien/pseuds/NotASpaceAlien
Summary: The Them hunt some ghosts.  Written for the 2020 Holiday Exchange.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 6
Collections: Good Omens Holiday Exchange 2020





	Ghost in the Machine

**Author's Note:**

> On DW at https://go-exchange.dreamwidth.org/264023.html  
> On tumblr at https://not-a-space-alien.tumblr.com/post/639428065901068288/ghost-in-the-machine

The lights clicked back on, washing the darkness out of a room packed with pillows and blankets arranged in a crude fort.

“Wow,” said Brian. “That sure was a scary movie.”

“It wasn’t that scary,” said Pepper, who had in fact been scared quite a lot.

Wensleydale looked around at their nest, where half-eaten Halloween candy still lay strewn about. “It was...seasonally appropriate.”

“It’s okay to admit you were scared,” said Brian.

“It wasn’t scary,” said Pepper.

“It was!” said Brian. “When the ghost lady phased through the wall— and the— And then she— _Phcrowwwwww!_ ” Here Brian made an outward expanding gesture reminiscent of an explosion that had happened in the movie.

“What did you think of it, Adam?” said Pepper. “It wasn’t scary, was it? Tell them.”

They all turned to Adam, who sat cross-legged on the blankets. He stared at the credits rolling on the screen with a glassy-eyed expression.

“Adam?”

***

“Right,” said Adam, marching up and down their regimented line. “Now who are we?”

The Them looked at each other uncomfortably.

“I said, who are we?”

“Adam, I don’t know if—” Pepper began.

“Tell me who we are!”

“The Ghostbusters,” Brian sighed.

“Adam, I don’t think you can really do that,” said Wensleydale, pushing his glasses up his nose. “ _Ghostbusters_ is a comedy, and it’s meant to be silly, whereas the ghost from the movie last night was—”

“Not scary,” Pepper insisted.

“ _Meant_ to be scary, at least,” Wensleydale said. “Not to mention we look nothing like the actual Ghostbusters. I mean, we haven’t got proton packs or anything.”

“No,” Adam shot back, who had rather liked the Ghostbusters when he had seen them a few years ago and was quite sour about the fight Wensleydale was putting up, “but what we have is _better_.”

Wensleydale rolled the crude gun constructed of toilet paper tubes in his hands. On the side was written in marker “ _Ghost gun._ ” “’Suppose,” he said unsurely.

Brian fiddled with the knobs on his Spooky-o-meter, which was a highly advanced technology with a dial that could move between phases of red and green, and was made of the latest cutting-edge next-gen materials.* “We’re all in the clear right now,” said Brian, manually sliding the dial to the lowest setting. “The Spookometer’s not picking anything up.”

*A cardboard shipping box

“It’s pronounced ‘Spooky-o-meter,’” said Adam.

“But Spookometer sounds better,” Brian complained.

“Well, when _you_ invent the latest and greatest in ghost-detecting technology, then you can name it and decide how it’s pronounced,” said Adam. “As I recall, while I crafted the _Spooky-o-meter,_ you were off failing to help Pepper perfect the Ghost Maul.”

Pepper hefted her weapon, which was a Ghost Sword. It had been their second choice when their first efforts failed to live up to the images of mauls they had seen in their library books full of images of medieval weapons. It turns out a “maul” can look pretty similar to a simple big mallet if you make it out of cardboard, which isn’t very intimidating or cool looking.

“Anyway,” said Pepper, “we can’t be the Ghostbusters anyway because we’re _killing_ the ghosts, not _busting_ them. Can’t very well _bust_ a ghost with a sword, can you? Really only one thing a sword can do.”

“Fine,” said Adam snidely. “We can be the Ghost _killers_ , then. Is that better? We are an original group of ghost fighters that fights ghosts and kills them. How about that?”

Wensleydale nodded.

“Right!” said Adam. He hefted his own cardboard construction, much larger than anyone else’s, which was roughly in the shape of a rifle and had the words “Supernatural Laser Rifle” on the side. “Now I’ve got it on good authority that there’s a very spooky haunted house just on the other side of town, which probably has a few good ghosts there for us to check out…”

***

The very spooky haunted house just on the other side of town in question was the archetype of a haunted house, with peeling paint, boarded up windows, dead ivy clinging to the sides, a rusty metal fence, and a muddy yard full of weeds.

The Them all looked at it unsurely. 

“This...this house definitely wasn’t here before,” said Wensleydale. “...Right?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” said Adam. “Look how old it is. It’s got to be hundreds of years old. A hundreds of years old house doesn’t just appear.”

“I think Wensleydale is right,” said Pepper. “We drive past this street all the time on the way to school, and I’ve definitely never seen this house before.”

“Nonsense,” said Adam. “Dunderheads, the lot of you. You think someone would just make a weird old house for us to play in? Doesn’t happen.” Adam courageously kicked the gate open, brandishing his cardboard rifle. “Watch out, ghosts! We’re coming for you!”

He marched forward, his galoshes splattering the mud. The rest of the Them looked at each other for a moment before following uneasily.

Adam made a motion to kick the door down, realised that his scrawny, twelve-year-old body would definitely lose that fight, and settled for trying the knob. It was unlocked.

“Are you sure we’re supposed to go in here?” said Brian fearfully. “What if it’s dangerous?”

“Of course it’s dangerous,” said Adam. “There’s ghosts in there. It’s our job to clear them out so they don’t hurt anyone else, before it’s too late. Didn’t you watch the movie last night?”

Brian clutched his Spooky-o-meter. “But that ghost in the movie killed people before they took her down!”

“Right,” said Adam.

Brian moved the dial of the Spooky-o-meter up to medium. “I’m starting to pick up something.”

Adam peeked in, using the tiny torch he had fished out of the door of his parent’s car to illuminate the entryway. Dust motes floated ominously in the cold, dead air. “I’m not surprised. Looks like there’s a nasty ghost infestation here. We got here just in time.”

“Let’s get them,” said Pepper. “That is, if you’re sure, Adam…”

“Of course I’m sure.” Adam pushed the door all the way open and noted just for the first time how _very_ dark the house was, and why his friends had been complaining. He swallowed. “Let’s go.”

The floorboards creaked under their approach, the frame of the house groaning. Wensleydale and Pepper also pulled out torches they had brought. Brian pulled one out, but its batteries were dead, so he skittered forward and hugged close to Adam. He moved the needle on the Spooky-o-meter up again. “Getting some serious signals here, Adam.”

Adam pointed his rifle at the stairs, then at the door to what must have been a closet, then at the entryway into an ornate kitchen covered in grime. It was anachronistically fancy, covered in a layer of dust and soot an inch thick, with randomly placed holes in the floorboards; in short, it was exactly what a child’s imagination of a haunted house should look like.

A distant moaning sounded. Brian lifted the Spooky-o-meter. “I think it’s coming from upstairs, Adam.”

“Right. Be careful, everyone,” said Adam.

He led the group towards the stairs, inching up them on high alert. Each agonizing step up was accompanied by a floorboard crying out.

They reached the landing. A faint glow came from the next room.

“Adam,” said Pepper, her courage evaporating.

“It’s off the charts!” said Brian.

They all pointed their weapons. “Come out, you ghost!” yelled Adam. “I’m not afraid of you!”

A spectre appeared, a shrieking, transparent woman in a dressing gown with matted, frayed hair, screaming like the devil, jumping straight through the wall.

Pepper, Brian, and Wensleydale all shrieked in turn, jumping back and hitting into the bannister, their cardboard weapons forgotten.

“Adam!” said Pepper.

“A ghost!” said Wensleydale. “A real ghost! Adam!”

The look of excitement cresting Adam’s face began to fade.

“It’s just like the ghost in the movie!” Brian cried. 

“Yeah,” said Adam, shoulders slumping. “It’s _just_ like the ghost in the movie.”

The Them looked at him. The ghost hovered there, suspended.

“Adam, what do we do?” Pepper said.

Adam dropped his cardboard rifle. The ghost dissipated into a wisp of smoke. “Do whatever you want. I don’t care.”

And he put his hands in his grubby pockets and slunk down the stairs, out of the haunted house.

***

It was almost bedtime when the Them managed to catch up to Adam, sulking in the quarry alone.

“Adam,” said Wensleydale, plopping down on the ground next to him. “That was pretty uncool, you know. You just left us there.”

“Sorry I guess,” said Adam.

“You’re not sorry,” said Pepper hotly. “What’s wrong with you?”

“It’s not like you were ever in any real danger,” snapped Adam. “What does it matter?”

“You don’t know that there wasn’t any real danger,” said Wensleydale. “There was a ghost and everything!”

“What’s wrong, Adam?” said Brian. “I thought you’d be super excited to find a ghost. That’s what we went there for, isn’t it?”

Adam stretched out his legs, examining his untied shoelaces morosely. “It was the same ghost as in the movie.”

“So?” said Pepper.

“ _So?_ ” said Adam. “You think that just happens?”

“Not any more than a real ghost just happens!”

Adam drew his legs up to his chest. “I made that happen.”

Pepper and Wensleydale looked at each other. Brian picked his nose.

“What do you mean?” said Pepper.

“The house, the ghost, the whole ghostbusting thing, I made that happen. I have supernatural powers that means that sort of thing...just sort of happens sometimes.”

This is something the Them had sort of half-forgotten since the attempted apocalypse; they knew deep down this was true about Adam, but they generally sort of ignored it, for all their sakes.

“Then why are you sulking about it?” said Brian.

“I didn’t do it _on purpose,_ ” snapped Adam. “I thought it would be fun to go ghost hunting and the universe just rearranged itself to make it happen. I didn’t realize it until I saw the actual ghost that it was all just something I made up because I watched the movie. My subconscious mind just copied the movie. You guys all saw it, but I kept telling you to shut up about it.”

“It’s okay, Adam,” said Pepper. “You don’t have to feel bad about not thinking up your own ghost.”

“It’s not about the ghost!” Adam yelled. He hid his face in his hands. “I thought that maybe, for once, the universe could have a surprise for me, and I could get to have an adventure without knowing the ending. I was having fun making pretend until the evidence that I made it all up smacked me in the face.”

The Them all looked at each other.

“How am I supposed to have fun fighting ghosts if I know I can just snap my fingers and make the ghost go away? It’s like cheating at a video game to give yourself infinite lives. It takes the fun out of it. And that’s going to be my whole life.”

Pepper sat down next to Adam. “Adam…”

“I thought I had gotten rid of all that, but the universe keeps doing this even though I’m not telling it to anymore.”

“I thought it was fun, though,” said Brian.

Adam’s tearful gaze turned onto him.

“I kind of figured it wasn’t really real.”

“Yeah,” Wensleydale muttered.

“S’not about it being real, really. S’about it being fun. Isn’t hunting a ghost fun, even if it’s just pretend?”

“I don’t think I’d want to hunt a _real_ ghost,” said Brian. “It’s like America and cowboys and stuff. It’s all fun to pretend with, but at the end of the day it’s nice to just put it away.”

“Those people in the movie last night knew it wasn’t real,” said Pepper. “The actors, I mean. But they seemed to have fun. And we knew the movie wasn’t real, but we all had fun.”

Adam sulked.

“It’s there for us to play with. Why be sad about that?”

“I just…” Adam trailed off, then said, resignedly, “How am I ever supposed to have fun when I could at any moment realize it's all been something I did?"

“Does that really make it so bad, Adam?” said Pepper.

“I would give anything to know what was going on,” said Brian.

“Hey Adam, you know those board games people play with the polyhedral die and spreadsheets and mini figures of elves and dragons and stuff?” Wensleydale said.

Adam uncurled his knees and looked at Wensleydale. “Yeah. What about ‘em?”

“One of the players is the dungeon master. He always knows what’s going on, because he’s the one who designs the game. He’s the most powerful player in that universe.”

Adam perked up a little. “You’re saying I’m like that?”

“The dungeon master has the most fun out of any of the players, too, as long as the other players are on board with the game he’s trying to make. My older brother let me play with his friends a couple of times.”

“You guys always like the games I think up,” said Adam.

“Yeah! My point is,” said Wensleydale, “just because you’re in control, or you know what’s going to happen, doesn’t mean you can’t have fun. The only limit is your imagination, and we all know what a cracking imagination you have.”

“I would love to play a game like that with you,” said Pepper. “I think you’d be great at it, Adam.”

“Do you want to go finish busting the ghost?” said Wensleydale. “I was scared out of my mind, but I think it’d be a lot of fun now that I know it’s just a game.”

“Really?” said Adam.

“Yeah,” said Wensleydale. “It’s better that way.”

Adam stood up, looking up at the reddening sky. He smiled. “Wens, what did we say earlier? We can’t be _busting_ the ghost. But maybe you’re right… It’s late enough now that it’ll be dark in the house, and we’ll get in trouble for getting home late. That’s sort of the point too, right? People have to treat the heroes like they’re crazy for believing in ghosts?”

“Yeah,” said Pepper. “Maybe if we’re lucky, we’ll get arrested!”

The them climbed out of the quarry, voices now raised in childish anticipation. They would indeed get grounded for being out too late, and the haunted house would mysteriously disappear in the morning light, but they knew their best games were still ahead of them.


End file.
